Category: Improvements

Construction will begin on a major new development in the heart of Limerick this morning.
The Gardens building aims to provide 750 jobs once it is completed.

The project is part of the Limerick 2030 programme driving investment and jobs in the region.

Laura Ryan from Limerick City and County Council says they hope it will help rejuvenate the mid-west.
“It’s really a catalyst for a new era of growth for Limerick as this is part of a wider programme to transform Limerick into a dynamic living and working city capable of competing with some of the best destinations in Europe,” she said.
“Limerick really is rejuvenated, it’s attracting a lot of international attention and now we’ll be able to offer what FDI [foreign direct investment] and business investors are mostly looking for.

Punch consulting added, “As the Civil & Structural Engineer PUNCH is proud to see construction begin for the Gardens International Office Development in Limerick.”

While many Limerick City-centre businesses (and obviously the Chamber of Commerce by association) are unhappy about the overruling of their planning permission objection to the multi-million injection into our city, we are not of the same opinion.

An alternative to blocking Limerick’s forward trajectory, would be for city-centre businesses to take a more holistic view of the bigger picture, in terms of their business strategy.

For example, being located in the city-centre does not ‘entitle’ any business to get more trade/footfall, by default. It takes more than an attitude of ‘we’re in the city centre so you shop here’ to entice customers to buy their products and services.

The businesses need to incentivise people to come into the city centre for reasons other than their location (or indeed any other external factors) to enhance their business. The reason people should come to your place of business should be because you are offering something better than the others.

A better product. A better service. Something to make a customer choose you, because you are better, because you are worthy of receiving our money in return for your goods; not because you are ‘near’.

Aspire to make your business better than the rest. Then customers will come to your whether you’re in the city-centre… or not.

Why is Limerick so Rough?

No. We say instead, “Why is Limerick so AWESOME.”

We’ll let you in on something strange that happened here today, so that you’ll know what this story is all about.

One of our researchers had some spare time on their hands and decided to go onto Google and do a search in relation to Limerick. We started our research by entering the words “Why is Limerick” into the Google Search box… and then Boom. Google get’s all nasty on us.

Without asking us anything further and without any hesitation, Google’s Auto-Complete immediately auto-suggested “Why is Limerick so rough” (amongst some other unsavoury things, as you can see below). All this before we could finish typing in our question!

Now, that got us around to thinking.

Is this what people are really searching for? Is this what people see on Google when asking about Limerick? Do we look like this to the ‘outside world’ from Google’s point of view?

You see, we love our City and want others to love Her also, but it’s hard to change the impression people have when even Google is on our case. As it turns out, thereis something we can do. It takes approximately 5 seconds.

We have devised a cunning plan of epic proportions, to make Google change the suggestions that pop-up when somebody is doing a search. Here’s what you gotta do:

Type in “Why is Limerick so AWESOME” (as per the pic. below) and then hit enter.

If you’re one those people who are riding the tidal wave of apathy that’s often out there in relation to Limerick 2030 (and any Limerick based projects in general) we’ve made it so that you only need to click a single link to make all this happen Let Limerick Choose.

You see, if more than a hundred people or so do this, it will cause a change in Google’s Auto-Complete algorithm. To cut a long story short, it will mean that when people type “Why is Limerick…” into Google, they will no longer see the bad stuff popping up first and they will start seeing the good stuff popping up instead.

Limerick has the power to choose what other people will see in Google.

Editor’s Note#1: We got so hooked on this ‘auto-complete’ thing, that we decided to do one for every county, not just Limerick. The results are below. Some are normal and some are just… well, see for yourself.

We Typed this into Google:

Google Auto-Completed this :

Editor’s Note #2

Why is Antrim

why is antrim called the saffron county

It is?

Why is Armagh

why is armagh the orchard county

Why is Carlow

No Result

Anybody using Google in Carlow?

Why is Cavan

No Result

Google did suggest : “why is Cavani so cheap”. Maybe both Cavan and Cavani are cheap?

I would like to offer my expertise and experience to the Limerick City of Culture Board as interim Artistic Director on a voluntary / Pro Bono basis until the newly configured Board of Directors appoint a suitable Artistic Director through due diligence. This is being offered to get the programme back on track and to reassure the artistic community continuity as a matter of urgency.

If the Limerick City of Culture Board accept my offer the first thing I will do is organise a massive all inclusive Limerick Creative SHOWCASE for late January to take place in the City centre, inclusive of all the artistic disciplines within the city, to reclaim the rightful honour that is National City of Culture 2014.

The Second thing I will do will be to invite previous City of Culture programmers Maeve McGrath and Joe Mangan to re-join the team for the sake of clarity and continuity in the programming.

The third thing I will do is to commit fully to get on with the job at hand, which is to consolidate and confirm the immediate programme of events and build trust in the community around ‘city of culture’.

I am confident that I have the full support of all the Local Arts Practitioners, professional and voluntary and the citizens of Limerick to do the job to the best of my ability with their assistance and commitment.

This would only be an interim solution giving the newly configured Board the necessary time and space to appoint a suitable replacement Artistic Director in due course.

Richie Ryan.

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